Peter Foster is the Telegraph's US Editor based in Washington DC. He moved to America in January 2012 after three years based in Beijing, where he covered the rise of China. Before that, he was based in New Delhi as South Asia correspondent. He has reported for The Telegraph for more than a decade, covering two Olympic Games, 9/11 in New York, the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, the post-conflict phases in Afghanistan and Iraq and the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan.

Progress in paradise

Potentially momentous events are in train in the Maldives, that string of Indian Ocean 'paradise Islands' that is struggling to find a path to democracy after 27 years of autocratic rule by President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.

All is not as tranquil as it seems

Sometime around now, the government and members of the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party are scheduled meet in Colombo to try and hammer out an agreement that might just might create a path to progress.

This is the third round of negotiations, the first two of which led to the so-called 'Westminster House' agreement named after the venue for the British-facilitated negotiations in Colombo.

Basically the opposition MDP agreed to 'behave' i.e not foment violent demonstrations and engage in constructive work in the legislature in exchange for their political prisoners being released from jail.

As a result, rumours have abounded this week that Mohamed Nasheed, the chairman of the Maldivian democratic party who is currently under house arrest, was going to be released.

However, these reportsÂ have provedÂ a little previous. The government says it feels that the MDP has reneged on its side of the agreement first by leaking the details to the press and secondly because it staged a small demonstration in Addu Atol last Friday without giving police prior warning.

These seem – to me, at least – pretty flimsy pretexts for them to be stalling on its side of the deal. More likely there remain factions within Gayoom coterie including family members and the widely detested police chief who aren't yet sold on the idea of democracy.

Speaking to the government side you often get the sense that they haven't quite twigged what democracy really means or perhaps they have, and that's the problem.

Democracy means giving up control, but the government, seems determined to stage-manage the path to democracy on its terms. Not surprisingly the opposition is still sceptical. They want democracy, not the government's cooked-up version of it.

The government is also fond of whispering in the ears of reporters like me that the MDP isn't a representative organization and doesn't have broad support among the people. They might be right, but the introduction of the ballot box is the only way to find out.

For its part, the MDP is still too divided to be powerful. An insider tells me that the atmosphere at the Colombo meetings is highly cordial, but that when both sides get back to Male, both sides start bickering all over again.

Today the MDP faithful are gathered in Male for an "extraordinary congress" which might go some ways to ironing disagreements about who should lead the party and what title he or she should have.

The mood, judging by the Minivan newspaper dispatch that arrived in my inbox a few minutes ago, is buoyant, with talk about the MDP "seeking a mandate to govern as early as December next year."

My guess is it might take a little longer than that, but the timing of revolutions are notoriously difficult to judge. All being well, a positive statement might be forthcoming from Colombo later this week.